Wednesday, 19 January 2011

Even more Dornbusch bullshit

Thanks to Barm for pointing this one out to me. It's so stunningly wrong, I can't let it go.

"Mumme or Broyhan beer, so-named after Cord Broyhan, a native Hanoverian brewmaster, is a well-hopped, light brown, medieval ale, made from about one-third wheat and two-thirds barley. Also known as Keutbier, it became, for a couple of centuries, the most widely distributed style in north Germany. In the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries Hamburg emerged as a major international brewing center, shipping its beers to wherever sailing ships would call. The brew industry employed almost half of Hamburg's wage-earning population, and it was in one of Hamburg's 531 breweries that Cord Broyhan learned the secrets of beer-making. When he returned to Hanover, in 1526, he became a very successful bewery entrepreneur. Soon others in Hanover followed Cord's lead and opened up competing breweries. In 1609, the city council of Hanover began to regulate the quality and brew techniques of the local Mumme beer, limiting the number of brewer burghers to 317, combining all of them into one guild, and incorporating the guild as a company. The Guild brewery still exists today and is the oldest enterprise in Hannover. It is now part of the Belgian InBev brewing concern.

Though no longer brewed today, Mumme's historical significance is its relationship to the other northern German beer styles. As an ale, it is a distant relative of the modern Altbier, and has influenced the flavor and brewing techniques of such beer styles as Berliner Weisse, Leipziger Gose and Belgian Wit/bière blanche."
http://www.germanbeerinstitute.com/Mumme.html

He manages to confuse three totally different styles of beer. What did Mumme, Broyhan and Keut have in common? They were all brewed in North Germany. That's where the similarities end.

Let's start at the beginning. The first sentence alone has half a dozen errors:

Mumme and Broyhan are not the same thing

Cord Broyhan was from Stöcken, learnt brewing in Hamburg then moved to Hannover

Broyhan was lightly-hopped

It wasn't brown, but pale

It wasn't medieval - it was first brewed in the 1500's

It didn't necessarily contain wheat

Keut (or Koyt) is yet a third style of beer. That is much older, dating back to at least the early 15th century. It's a pre-hop beer that was orininally flavoured with gruit. In Holland Jopen brew a rather good Koyt, based on a 15th century Dutch recipe.

Then there's the differences between Broyhan and Mumme. Broyhan was a fairly low-gravity, low-alcohol beer that's often quoted as the direct ancestor of Berliner Weisse. Mumme was a beer with a massive OG - over 1200 - and an incredibly low degree of attenuation. It's hard to think of two more dissimilar beers. Not sure whether to believe me? Here are some numbers:

Broyhan was light in colour, body and alcohol. Mumme was "thick, strong, and of a dark brown colour". More like treacle than beer. It's like saying Light Mild and Imperial Stout are the same thing. That bad. Oh yes, Mumme is from Braunschweig and Broyhan from Hannover. Two different towns. Close to each other, yes, but until the late 19th century in different countries.

I might let off a non-German speaker for coming up with such utter rubbish. But Dornbusch is German and can read the sources I've used more easily than me. He has no excuse.

While I've got him down on the floor, I may as well give Horst a few extra kicks in the nuts.

There's the pretentious (and misleading) name of his website: The German Beer Institute. It's not an Institute. It's his personal self-promotion page. Bit of a difference. Then there's the ludicrous claims he makes on its front page "the first and only comprehensive, authoritative information resource for English-speaking fans of German beer." You have to laugh at that.

Finally there's the irritating way he keeps using the word "Ale" to describe extinct German top-fermenting styles. But what would you expect from such an utter twat?

@Barm: You fool! You keep on giving away material that would make you a shoo-in winner of the next Papazian Cup/Protz Shield competition! :)

I don't think that Barth-Haas or Weyermann care that much about beer history. Dornbusch isn't selling history, he's selling advertising. As long as the company name is prominently displayed above the title of a book called "The Complete History of Beer," or something like it, they're happy.